34 THE DOVER ROAD 



And England was " merry England " again. The 

 maypole reappeared upon the village green, ginger 

 was hot i' the mouth once more, cakes and ale dis- 

 appeared down hungry and thirsty throats, and none 

 declared eating and drinking to be carnal sins ; folks 

 sang songs and danced where had been only the 

 singing of psalms in nasal tones and walking circum- 

 spectly ; close-cropped polls grew love-locks again, 

 and sad raiment gave place to the revived glories of 

 ancient doublet and hose whose colours mocked the 

 sun for splendour. For ten years had the people 

 gone in a penitential gait that allowed neither gaiety 

 nor enjoyment of any kind to pass unreproved, and 

 now that all England was rejoicing that a pharisaical 

 Puritanism had been overthrown, what wonder that 

 young men and maidens who were too young to 

 recollect the old England that existed before the 

 Commonwealth plunged now into the wildest excesses, 

 aided and abetted by old and middle-aged alike. 

 The pendulum had swung back, and from whining 

 religiosity the people turned to the extreme of 

 licentiousness. 



And so at last to leave the historic aspect of Black- 

 heath, which I had begun to fear would detain me 

 until a volume had been made of it. Leaving the 

 heath by the Dover Road, which still follows the old 

 Watling Street, the way is bordered by apparently 

 endless rows of villas, and the outskirts of Kidbrook 

 and Charlton village are passed before one comes to 

 where the fields, bordered by hedgerows, first come in 

 sight, and even these are disfigured by great boards, 

 offering land to be let for building-plots. This is, 

 indeed, a neighbourhood where the incautious stranger 

 takes a villa overlooking meadows, for the sake of the 

 view, and finds, on waking up one fine morning, the 

 builders putting in the foundations of a new house 

 which will eventually hide his prospect ; or where, 

 having taken a month's holiday, he returns, to find a 

 new street round the corner, with a brand new public- 



